A celestial navigation device was called upon in central Tokyo today to track down an unoccupied cafe seat.

After the traditional method of using one’s eyes failed to deliver, Arthur Chambers pulled out his trusty mariner’s astrolabe.

Chambers initially aligned the astrolabe towards the direction of another cafe in order to read the altitude off the outer degree scale, but overcast conditions didn’t allow for the shadow of one of the alidade’s vanes to be cast onto the opposite vane.

“The only seats I could find had bags or small towels on them.”

Chambers then decided to utilise the wooden-based kamal.

“The mariner’s astrolabe failed me, so I pulled out the big guns, the wooden-based kamal,” said Chambers.

Chambers used position fixing enabling him to transition from cafe to cafe without relying heavily on estimated calculations.

“I was actually pretty lucky in the end to find a seat without having to resort to my nautical cross-staff.”